Sol Yurick wrote the book in 1965, based loosely on The Lost Patrol. In 1978 Walter Hill took it to the screen as Director of The Warriors.

It’s a theme that’s actually pretty basic and hard not to rally behind.People fighting their way back home against insurmountable odds.Underdogs, doing what they need to do.

But between The Warriors and the film adaptation of Richard Price’s The Wanderers, the summer movie scene scared the hell out of a lot of adults. And some of the fear might have been for a reason. Fights broke out in theaters all over the country. However it’s hard to blame the movie makers, after who’s to say that these were not people predisposed to violence already. And I have to admit to feeling pretty charged up after I saw it the first time.

Cyrus, the leader of “The Riffs” has a plan to unite all the gangs together and take control of the city. Some knuckle head shoots him and blames The Warriors. They just want to go home, but that’s going to be a little hard with every gang in the city out to kill them.

And what fun gangs! A whole gang of dudes dressed as mimes! Scary!!!!
And the Furies, baseball outfit wearing guys with clown like makeup. And The Lizzies….. Ahhhhh I love this movie.

It could have been the beginning of a fun career for Michael Beck, too bad he followed it up with Xanadu….
But there are some other faces showing up early in their careers.

I think the real reason it holds it’s charm is that this was back when gangs still had fights. The level of violence was different. You actually needed to be able to fight. Today, they just point and shoot over any imagined slight.

But I can close my eyes and still hear Joe Walsh cueing up as they walk down the beach as the credits start…